1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector for a high density cable, more particularly, it relates to a mechanism for connecting a coaxial cable to a printed circuit board through an associated latch, the connectors being located on the printed circuit board in a matrix arrangement and at a high density.
Due to a current requirement for an increased density of connectors mounted on a printed circuit board (referred to as a PC board hereinafter), a matrix mounting system in which a desired number of contact pins is grouped into a block, and a plurality of connectors are located in a matrix arrangement corresponding to the desired number of contact pins, is used. In this matrix mounting system, however, because the number of connectors is increased the latch means must be improved to prevent interference between connectors located very close to each other, in order to increase the mounting density thereof, in a very small mounting space.
2. Description of the Related Art
In known connector latch means, the connectors are individually secured to the PC board by set screws, or connectors in the same row of a matrix are latched together. The coaxial cables to be connected to the respective connectors are provided with grounding shields, and the shield connection is made by mating special grounding contacts and the contact pins by plugging them together.
The conventional latching means and related assembly method mentioned above has drawbacks in that it is very difficult to mount and dismount the connectors and that the latching means is large and complex therefore and therefore, preferably a simple latching means is provided for each connector, by which an effective utilization can be made of a very small mounting space. Note, the plug-in shield connection of the cable allows an increased number of contact pins and an increased number of patterns of the PC board to be used. Preferably, the shield of the cables is directly connected to a frame of a housing of the associated apparatus, to ground same. In this case, preferably the connectors themselves are grounded to prevent a generation of static electricity when an operator accidentally touches the connectors during the mounting and dismounting thereof.